


Not Bood

by ReineJuly



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 15:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10363794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReineJuly/pseuds/ReineJuly
Summary: Seven replicas: one to replace the original and six to die. My take of Sync's origin story.





	

This job would have been a lot easier if the fonstone had been located inside the cathedral instead of the volcano beside the cathedral. The warp point helped but it was still such a pain going up and down all those stairs, especially with six kids in tow. Brady had suggested chaining them all together like prison inmates and Stevenson found that hilarious so he did it.

Now inside Mt. Zaleho, Brady was finishing setting up his notes on a nearby table and Stevenson was tasked with keeping the brussel sprouts from crawling too close to the edge of the platform and falling into the lava. Mohs wouldn’t be happy, especially since the original Fon Master died not too long after the seventh replica was created. The first replica had already been dealt with (rumors around the lab said that the original himself had killed him) so that left these six to go through the final test.

“How do you want to do this?” Brady asked, turning away from his notes. The other man shrugged.

“You tell me, Mr. Scientist. You’re the brains, I’m the brawn.” He flexed to prove his point. Brady snorted.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “How about this – unlock one of them and send them over, then I’ll hold them against the rock until it glows or… whatever fonstones do. Mohs wasn’t too clear on that.”

“What if it doesn’t do anything?” Stevenson asked, yanking the chain once so the green beans toppled over and twice to straighten them out into a line. They whined, of course, and made other annoying child noises, but the men ignored them.

“Mohs was _very_ clear on that.” Brady smirked. “He said to chuck ‘em.” Stevenson held his eye, weighing whether he was serious or not, then burst into a rumbling laugh.

“For real, man? Sick!” He didn’t waste any time pulling forward the first replica – Number Two – and unlocking his collar. The replica let out a whimper then a squeak when Stevenson grabbed him by the upper arm and shoved him towards Brady. “Do your thing, man!”

Brady didn’t have the strength that the soldier did but he was surprised at how little effort it took to force the replica against the fonstone and keep him there. Seconds ticked by, made less tolerable by the sobbing and snuffling noises the beans were making, but at least it kept the scientist’s mind off the intense heat. Surely this had to be some kind of health code violation.

After about ten seconds Brady gave up. The fonstone hadn’t done anything at all.

“Not good,” he said to Stevenson with a sigh, pushing the replica back in his direction.

“Alright!” Stevenson’s grin took over his face. He dropped the chain, stepping on it to keep it in place, and leaned over to grab the free replica around the waist. “How many points for getting ‘em over the far edge?!” The replica squealed and squirmed, though he was only a week old and had no understanding of what they were saying.

“Mm… ten points?”

“Works for me!” In one smooth motion Stevenson lifted the replica over his head and threw him with all his might. It wasn’t even close. The replica sailed over the edge and was met with a quick end.

“Well, it’s quieter,” Brady said, drawing an X on his notes. He flipped the page over. “Next.”

“ _Número tres_!” Stevenson unlocked the next replica and handed him off. It was good the brussel sprouts were still too new to know what death was but the concept wasn’t entirely lost on them. The whole line had gotten more fidgety, though there wasn’t much they could do with one foot of chain between them and only uneven ledges separating them from flesh-melting heat. Stevenson shivered in delight.

Brady could have done without the flesh-melting heat but at least this replica could make the fonstone light up. It was a faint flickering glow but that meant this one could use the seventh fonon.

“Good.” He waved for Stevenson to move in and put a check mark on the page. The soldier cast a menacing look down at the peas in a pod, making sure they were paralyzed in fear long enough for him to step forward and toss the not-failure onto the warp point. He vanished in an instant. There was a scientist on the other end that would take it from there. Stevenson pulled apart the next replica.

“ _Nummer vier_!” he said. Brady rolled his eyes. He waited the obligatory ten seconds before shoving the replica back at the soldier.

“Not good.” Another X on the page. Stevenson let out a whoop and slam-dunked the failure into the lava behind him. The splash was magnificent and the hiss sounded like an angry snake. Eagerly he unlocked the next one in the line.

“ _Numéro cinq_!” He gave the bean a shove forward then turned to examine the lava to see if there were any brutal remains in the liquid fire. Brady let out a hard breath through his nose and pressed the replica against the stone. He waited.

“Bood,” the replica said.

“What? ‘Good’?” Stevenson called over.

“No,” Brady said firmly, glaring down over his glasses at the small boy. “ **Not** bood – I mean good!” He shook his head viciously as Stevenson laughed. “Just for that, _I’m_ going to throw him!” Brady scratched an X before dropping his clipboard on the table and grabbing the cowering replica by the wrist. He wasn’t as smooth as Stevenson but he got the momentum going to toss the replica to the side for another ten points. He didn’t throw far enough, however, and the replica hit the ground with a gasp before rolling over the edge.

“Dude, you throw like a girl,” Stevenson said.

“Oh, shut up! Just give me the next one so we can get out of here.”

“Sure thing, man,” the soldier snickered. There were only two left anyway. “ _Numero kuusi_!”

“What language even is that?” Brady huffed as he held the sniveling replica against the fonstone.

“It’s Kettish. My grandparents were from Keterburg. They moved here after the whole place became a tourist attraction.”

“Not good.” Brady pushed the replica back. “When was the last time anyone used Kettish? It’s a dead language.” 

“It can’t be dead because my grandparents are still alive!” Stevenson got another ten points. The last pea from the pod was shoved forward. “Number Seven. There you go, man, English this time.”

“What, you don’t know Ancient Ispanian?” Brady tutted. “What are they teaching in schools nowadays?”

“You’re only like five years older than me, what are you going on about?”

The final replica passed and the two men gathered up their supplies before stepping on the warp point to take them and their argument back to the cathedral. If they had stopped to look around they would have seen that Number Five had been caught by a ledge instead of tumbling down into the fire below.

\---

When the Daath Cathedral had been expanded several years prior, the main library moved up from the basement to a new addition on the main floor. The old library fell into the hands of the higher-ups in the Order and then fell into disarray because Mohs couldn’t read, as Van concluded. He had certainly never seen the older, rotund man read a book so it was entirely unsurprising that when it came time to find a specific volume of an anthology, the Grand Maestro was absolutely no help at all.

Van avoided the old library as much as he possibly could, as it was dusty and unorganized and finding books was usually a task delegated to someone of a much lower rank, but today had been particularly tiresome and he needed to get out of his office so he ventured down to the library with about as much hope as he gave any task that involved Mohs – not much.

The thing about old buildings was that they made noise. Van was sure there was a metaphor that could be said about such an idea relating to life or perhaps personification of inanimate objects, but he wasn’t one for metaphors. All the creaks, cracks, clicks, skitterings of mouse feet and other elements of the old building symphony could be heard from anywhere in the Oracle Knight HQ so much that he was able to tune it out entirely as he scanned the near-empty shelves for his book. 

Still, as Van made his way down the aisle, there was one sound that wasn’t lost on him. It was rather impossible, he thought to himself as he paused, listening. He could have sworn it sounded like a child crying. He had heard enough crying children to be able to categorize it but it took one more quiet sob for him to confirm it. Frowning, Van kept one hand on his sword as he marched towards where the sound had come from at the back of the library. He couldn’t imagine any churchgoer’s child managing to wander this far without being caught along the way, and Mohs only allowed children to exist around him when it was beneficial to his image. Coupled with the fact – _assumed fact_ – that Mohs couldn’t read and therefore had no business in the library, that meant no one should have been down here, much less a child.

Van didn’t know what to expect as he rounded the corner but he was surprised to find that his intuition had been correct: curled up against the wall was a child. Beside him the door to the Mt. Zaleho warp point was standing ajar and a trail of dirt and ash led Van to his conclusion.

“Oh dear.” He knew Mohs had planned to deal with the Ion replicas this week, though he didn’t know the exact day. Van had even suggested that Mohs keep a spare as a backup just in case. This shivering bundle clearly hadn’t been one of the chosen ones.

Van crouched down to examine the small boy. The replica pulled back, his expression flipping between wide-eyed terror and pure exhaustion. His simple white robe was stained and tattered, and looking closely now Van could see dried blood on arms and face.

“You poor thing,” Van said. He reached out a hand towards the replica, who let out a small wail and curled himself into an even tighter ball. “Why are you here?” He wasn’t expecting an answer of course, but after a few hiccuped sobs, the replica said very quietly,

“Not bood.” Van nodded thoughtfully, which seemed to calm the boy, though in truth he had no idea what this meant.

“I suppose I can’t leave you here,” he said after a moment’s consideration. He looked up towards the warp point, then back down at the boy who was watching him with tired green eyes. Van sighed. Legretta would kill him for bringing back another child but it couldn’t be helped. He bent over to pick up the replica, who put up a little fight but gave in to exhaustion after only a few swipes.

“Your form could use some work,” Van commented, taking note of the charred bits of fabric on the replica’s back. That would leave a scar for sure. “I don’t suppose Mohs thought ahead and named all his replicas, did he?”

“Not bood.”

“Yes, you’ve said that, but I need a name.”

“ _Nummer cinq_.”

“Sync?”

“Not bood.”

“Sync it is.”

\---

As a scientist, Brady considered it his job to understand things. He understood how fonons came together to create artes, and how defensive some people got over their favorite baseball team losing their star batter to a shoulder injury during the first game of the season.

What he didn’t understand was politics. Had he understood politics, he might have understood why he was running for his life right now. One moment he was observing fonons in a petri dish and the next moment there was a hole blown into the lab wall. It could have been an accidental explosion from the test site on the other side of the wall, but accidental explosions didn’t come with a military unit and a commander barking orders. This was a planned attack.

Realistically, out of the dozens of people who worked out of this facility, the chances that Brady was one of their targets was extremely low. After all, the Score had said he would live a long and fruitful life. The Score was never wrong. 

Still, Brady was only human and he couldn’t help it when the hairs on the back of his neck started to prick up and an uneasy feeling washed over him. He broke off from the stampede of terrified coworkers, and turned down a narrow hall, escaping into the room at the end. It was a storage room, full of boxes and other things that would keep him hidden until it was safe to come out. He wanted to be relieved but the footsteps behind him crushed any chance of that. He whipped around.

Looks alone wouldn’t have made Brady beat an eye. No, it was his presence. The way he walked, each step calculated and exact, and the mask covering his face, betraying nothing beyond a tight-lipped frown that could mean anything. Brady felt his back hit the wall.

“H-hey, man,” he stuttered. His eyes darted around the room, searching for anything he could use as a weapon, but deep down he knew it wouldn’t matter. Even if he found something he would never land a blow. He tried bargaining.

“Look, man,” he started again. The soldier was halfway across the room now. “I know this is a job to you, probably more than a job, but I’ll tell you what. I’ve got some money coming in from an investment, a really good investment.” His pace didn’t slow. Brady crouched down, begging his knees to not give in. 

“It must be half a million gald. At least. Or more. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s a lot, a-and it’s all yours!” The soldier stopped in front of Brady. His golden mask caught the light, casting a dark shadow down his front. All Brady could stare at was that mask.

“W-what do you say?” His voice broke and he offered a shaky smile. “We good?” The soldier tilted his head, the shadow moving away from his face and betraying his smirk. Brady could feel the blood rushing out of his head. Ever so slowly the solider lifted up his mask. Brady gasped. Those green eyes. He felt dizzy.

“No,” the replica said, his voice lowering to a whisper. “ _Not bood_.” Then he killed Brady.


End file.
